Search Dojo

Link baiting is perhaps the most challenging means of increasing incoming links to a website and webmasters are constantly working on increasing incoming links to their website via link baiting. Link baiting is the process of increasing incoming links to a website by creating interesting content, useful tools or by any another means possible.

Link baiting is perfectly ‘legal ‘and should not be confused with paying other webmasters to link to a website as link baiting is purely voluntary.

To better understand link baiting; let’s assume that a SEO website has introduced a new tool that calculates incoming links to a website. A webmaster can choose to make the tool free to use and allow other webmasters to copy-paste code for the tool.

Whenever a webmaster displays the tool on his website, the tool will have an outgoing link to the website from which it was taken. In essence, the creator of the tool would have baited a link from another website.

Link baiting can be carried out using content, images, videos and other multimedia content. Link baiting is divided into the following categories based on the method used: Information based link baiting Websites that offer rare content, tips and tricks, and information usually attract a lot of incoming links from websites. Well researched and insightful content is usually referenced by other websites and information based link baiting is one of the simplest methods of link baiting.

News based link baiting Breaking news is one of the simplest ways to generate incoming links, by putting up breaking news and information on new developments a webmaster can bait websites into linking to his/her website. Websites usually link to press releases and breaking news articles as citations.

Humour and cartoons for link baiting Humorous write ups and funny cartoons are fast becoming a popular means of link baiting. Blog entries and other social networking sites love quoting a humours quote or cartoon, and most webmasters are inclined to acknowledge the source of the quote or cartoon.

Using tools for link baiting As mentioned in the beginning of the article, a webmaster can create a small widget (tool) that will be used by other webmasters and will add an incoming link to the website. Search engine optimization websites allow webmasters to display the PageRank of their website by copy-pasting a small code snippet. The tool does display the PageRank in graphic format but also baits an incoming link. Tool ‘hooks’ are fast becoming a popular way to carry out link baiting as the tools are usually updated and provide continuous utility to the webmaster.

Controversial content and link baiting, There is a saying ‘there is no publicity like bad publicity’. Sometimes, websites hosting controversial content get a lot of attention and are often quoted or cited by other websites. Apart from providing food for thought, controversial content is becoming a popular method for link baiting. It is important to remember that webmasters are coming up with newer techniques to carry out link building everyday.

Popularity: 31% [?]

===================================================

Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company

===================================================

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable

asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize

in knowing how to raise your search engine positions,

monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and

adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable

results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,

effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best

interest to go to an outside source rather than try to

maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and

there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and

the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an

affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering

the approach they employ to raise your search engine

positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,

doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These

techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the

worst case scenario, will only get your website severely

penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s

index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible

to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is

coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to

this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost

your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages

utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely

different server. Google, one of the largest and most

important search engine on the Internet, will remove your

website from their index if they detect you have cloaked

pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this

technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the

company you hire will not work with your competitors while

they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously

compromise the effectiveness of the search engine

optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will

use the success they achieve for your website to sell their

services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in

writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to

check out is the company’s track record of results.

However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will

undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell

their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement

of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify

their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results

on. The ones that are important are the most popular

engines, and these are the ones you want to see good

results on. Since the popularity of search engines can

change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check

out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You

can access this at

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming

great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with

unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes”

will get high popularity ranking because no one else would

think of using it. What you are looking for is good results

using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,

available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free

trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This

software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based

on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the

company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to

see a wide range of positions over a number of different

search engines using different keywords or phrases for the

entire site. Request a report for any client the company

claims to have done well for. This report should show good

positions on a number of the most popular search engines

for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization

companies, make sure they have actually done the work they

are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other

company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them.

If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you

results for, and ask for the name of their search engine

optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search

engine optimization campaign will result in maximum

exposure across a wide range of popular search engines

using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the

formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it

always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are

considering for a report that shows you rankings across a

number of popular search engines for a period of at least

six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process

that is continual, and you need a company that not only

understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search

engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust

its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your

positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your

search engine optimization company to do this for you,

request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that

this report should show rankings for the most popular

search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only

shows great results for a limited number of small search

engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also

confirm that the popular search engine results they are

showing you are indeed the popular search engines

currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a

format that you can easily understand. For example, it

could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at

least six months and presents data such as the top 50

positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages

each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are

considering actually monitors these positions or pages

every month, and that the sample report they show you

includes findings and recommendations for the specific

site. This insures that the company will actively monitor

and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis

rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You

need a company that is actively participant in your search

engine marketing campaign, not just an information

gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of

company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization

company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.

It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a

company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your

website, you might consider waiting until you do have the

finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your

finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable

company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable

work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that

there are risks involved with using a company without a

proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don’t

take that leap unless the company can supply you with a

least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good

company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your

references because of any reason, confidentiality included.

Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm

you choose should provide you with a minimum of two

references, one that is from the past, and one that is

current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask

precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is

wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the

company, such as their availability to answer questions and

deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask

the reference to rate the overall performance of the

company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make

significant changes to their web pages that affected the

visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search

engine optimization company that can balance the needs of

both search engines and site visitors without compromising

either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of

the search engine optimization company resulted in higher

profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t

matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or

not.

Popularity: 37% [?]

===================================================

Search Engine Keywords Selection

===================================================

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential

customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to

reach their destination - your website - you need to

provide them with specific and effective signs that will

direct them right to your site. You do this by creating

carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the

Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and

presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front

door. But if your keywords are too general or too

over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it

all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits

from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing

strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no

matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the

right people may never get the chance to find out about it.

So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather

and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words

for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t

followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.

It’s hard to be objective when you are right in the center

of your business network, which is the reason that you may

not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the

inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.

And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,

your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of

potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words

from as many potential customers as you can. You will most

likely find out that your understanding of your business

and your customers’ understanding is significantly

different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the

words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you

probably never would have considered from deep inside the

trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from

outside resources should you add your own keyword to the

list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for

the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a

small number of words and phrases that will direct the

highest number of quality visitors to your website. By

“quality visitors” I mean those consumers who are most

likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around

your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating

the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:

popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an

objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the

more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a

search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity

of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating

based on real search engine activity. Software such as

WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and

phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a

given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to

be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this

concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the

search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are

down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will

probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn’t enough to declare a keyword a good choice.

You must move on to the next criteria, which is

specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater

the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase

your goods or services will find you.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have

obtained popularity rankings for the keyword “automobile

companies.” However, you company specializes in bodywork

only. The keyword “automobile body shops” would rank lower

on the popularity scale than “automobile companies,” but it

would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of

getting a slew of people interested in everything from

buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get

only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled

fenders being directed to your site. In other words,

consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will

immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the

specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you

will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this

requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer

rather than the seller to figure out what motivation

prompts a person looking for a service or product to type

in a particular word or phrase. Let’s look at another

example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as

an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between

“Seattle job listings” and “Seattle IT recruiters” which do

you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were

looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would

you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second

keyword targets people who have decided on their career,

have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you

as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school

who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or

her life in between beer parties. You want to find people

who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires

subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most

specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most

motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.

You must continually evaluate performance across a variety

of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends

change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log

traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how

many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you

judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual

search engines. There is now software available that

analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.

This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you

the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a

good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find

keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually

buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your

product. This is the most important factor in evaluating

the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the

sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective

or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better

profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for

search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -

and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into

your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your

business’ rewards.

Popularity: 38% [?]

===================================================

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

===================================================

Your website’s ranking on search engines is a vital element

of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to

improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.

Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of

dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link

popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,

and are now on guard for “spam” pages and sites that have

increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a

search engines tracks down such a site, that site is

demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search

engine’s index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely

above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page

criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in

the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index,

even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh

treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you

should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of

misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you

are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning

website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the

Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about

increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you

must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose

to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites

that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of

artificially boosting their link popularity. They have

actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.”

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be

penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;

penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the

link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and

double-check, all the links that are active on your links

page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages

you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way

to do this is to download the Google toolbar at

http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most

pages are given a “Pagerank” which is represented by a

sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the

scale. This is especially important when the scale is

completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages

have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you

may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be

difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose

scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.

These sites have not been penalized, and their links may

grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that

you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that

at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have

linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to

artificially boost their link popularity is the use of

hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web

pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means

that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you

have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine

ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of

keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding

their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to

any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the

keywords but made them the same color as the background

color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on

a white background. You cannot see these words with the

human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot

them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to

index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it

goes back and boosts that page’s link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but

search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a

search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the

page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit

overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For

example, if the background color of your page is gray, and

you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider

will only take note of the gray text and assume you are

employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,

simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color

to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is

called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your

keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you

can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please

those spiders. A search engine uses what is called

“Keyphrase Density” to determine if a site is trying to

artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of

keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search

engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a

keyword before it decides you have overdone it and

penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass

without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your

keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,

it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword

is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase

in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so

that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not

repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword

should never appear in more than half the sentences on the

page.

The final potential risk factor is known as “cloaking.” To

those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should

be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when

the server directs a visitor to one page and a search

engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees

is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic,

and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine

ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything

it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the

list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this

act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep

penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that

sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as

prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as

“pagejacking.” This kind of shielding is unnecessary these

days due to the use of “off page” elements, such as link

popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is

aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure

the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will

put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link

popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent

to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor

your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially

boosting your rankings.

Popularity: 40% [?]

===================================================

Paid URL Inclusion

===================================================

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is

both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There

are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your

website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose

from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine

optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are

targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of

search engine results as possible. One of the differences

is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign

versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that

most search engines, including some of the largest ones,

now offer. It requires a bid for a “per-click” basis, which

translates to your company paying the bid amount every time

the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is

the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your

website traffic, your site often appears in the results of

other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and

disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor

your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very

effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never

have to tweak your web pages to change your position in

search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO

campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click

campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click

process. You just bid and you’re up and running. It doesn’t

demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more

you know about search engines and keywords, the easier -

and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding

war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on

search engine results. This means that you will have to

raise your bid to regain your position - which can

obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are

bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective

form of marketing for your business, you must do some

computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site

is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit

you make on your website over a given period of time by the

total number of visitors for that same time period. For

example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were

2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50

cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which

your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show

a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you

are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost

considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way

around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be

paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything

you can about search engine keyword research. The good news

is there isn’t a limit to the amount of keywords you can

add to your bid because additional keywords do not add

additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for

you because there is no need to optimize your site to index

a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than

others are, but they will not cost you anything except time

to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the

popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called

Overture provides an online tool that will give you the

data on how often particular keywords are entered into

their search engine. They also offer suggestions for

keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You

must understand that the object of your description is not

to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as

possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy

your service or product go to your site. You must use

expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is

both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal

candidates to your site. This description is your most

powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is

that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important

that you bear in mind that the results of the top search

engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are

Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other

popular search engines. Because of this, the competition

for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find

that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click

to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on

that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when

you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in

essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in

place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword.

It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a

monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis

of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about

consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring

and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business

needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click

campaign is a success.

Popularity: 42% [?]